Discounts, Rebates, and Cash Back Sites

In this holiday season it’s hard to control your spending, but you can take advantage of coupons and discounts if you belong to discount service e-commerce sites.

eBates.com

One place to go for a wide variety of rebates and discounts that you can have is at www.eBates.com. Registration is free and fast, and you can even get a discount card of up to $10.00 for registering.

Once inside their site, you have access to over 800 online merchants to buy their products. Companies like sears, Old Navy, Best Buy, Target, just to name a few are listed and will give you discounts when you shop there. But in addition, eBates will give you cash back on your purchases; yes, that’s right, in addition to the discount you get from the merchant, you can get cash back, in the form of cash not coupons or credit towards a purchase.

eBates allows you to look at the merchants alphabetically or by category. Either way you can find many items and can spend time looking for the best discount deal. There are 23 categories to choose from and many have special discounts and promotions during the holiday season.

How it Works

Once you sign up, you can start the shopping experience. An automatic ticket is opened up for you when you go to a merchant and look at their listings. The item you select is then placed in your shopping cart. This allows you to apply the discount. Once purchased, the amount of cash back is applied to your account. The amount may vary but it is usually 3%. Payouts are made every three months; but the minimum amount required for distribution is $5.01; carryover to the next pay schedule is applied if you don’t have that amount. And payment can be by check or to Paypal. Unfortunately not all purchases will give a cash back, but eBates will tell you upfront which ones will not. The other proviso for no cash back involves any purchase of goods, products, or services where the purchase transaction is completed by telephone will not qualify. On the other hand, the vast majority of purchases can be accomplished on line, and that means that they do qualify for cash back.

CoolSavings.com

Another e-commerce site that you can go to for coupons and discounts is www.CoolSavings.com. Their focus is largely the same as eBates, but there are some differences.

For one, there is a section called “Free Stuff.” There are a variety of merchants offered, but the “free stuff” comes at a price, like the buy 2 get 1 free routine. So it’s not exactly free. On the other hand, if you are so inclined, there are some appealing offers; in some cases the merchants provide you with a substantial (over 50%) discount if you become a member.

They have two coupon tabs one to print and the other to use online. You won’t find the printing coupon option on eBates. The printing coupons option allows you to print out a coupon, like it says, and take it to your merchant for price reduction on a product. You have to go back to the site weekly to see new coupons being advertised.

Another element that is different is the number of merchants that CoolSavings has listed. The number is over 2000 and growing.  The tab for comparing prices allows you to immediately look for the best dollar deals, the best coupon deals, or the best discount deals offered by the merchants.

They also have offerings that you wouldn’t expect like education offers. It’s not exactly get 10% off of your college degree, but they will show you how to get scholarships and online degrees that are available.

Their rebate section lists over 4,000 rebates available from products such as X-Box stations to digital cameras.  Some rebates are in the neighborhood of $2,000 depending on the purchase price. But you can scan through the category and determine which products you might want to look at more seriously.

These two coupon sites can bring you many savings. Some you can use for getting cash back, others for discounts, others for rebates.

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